via David de Ugarte On May 7, 2012 Grupo de las Indias started a campaign calling for a P2P directed local re-industrialization swarming action. They sent personal emails to more than 300 local and social leaders, including a mini-dossier in Spanish that shows how P2P industrialization could help stop the growth of unemployment in those… Continue reading
Date archives "May 2012"
German Ministry Advises Developing Countries Not To Sign ACTA
Source: Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) advises developing countries against signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, BMZ official Frank Schmiedchen said during a meeting of the Committee of Petitions of the German Parliament yesterday. The committee discussed a petition signed by over 60,000 German citizens calling… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World
Book: Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World. by Anthony Olcott. Continuum, 2012 Description The amount of publicly and often freely available information is staggering. Yet, the intelligence community still continues to collect and use information in the same manner as during WWII, when the OSS set out to learn as much as possible about… Continue reading
The Desktop Regulatory State Chapt. 2: The Systematic Stupidity of Hierarchies
[This is the third installment in my serialization of the first three chapters of my book-in-progress, tentatively titled Desktop Regulatory State] I. The Systematic Stupidity of Hierarchies The intrusion of power into human relationships creates irrationality and systematic stupidity. As Robert Anton Wilson argued in “Thirteen Choruses for the Divine Marquis,” A civilization based on… Continue reading
The civilizational victory of Syriza is rooted in the Syntagma Square occupations
The electoral victory of the anti-austerity coalition of Syriza is extremely important for the future of Europe’s peoples. Here is a rundown of commentary. Please see the last contribution linking the electoral victory to the strategies adopted during the Syntagma occupations last year. 1. The Impact of the Greek Elections of May 6, 2012 Costas… Continue reading
Can renewable energy sustain consumer societies?
Excerpted from Samuel Alexander of the Simplicity Institute, who discusses a new report by Ted Trainer. “A new report has just been published which ought to provoke a Copernican revolution in dominant conceptions of renewable energy and of sustainability more generally. The message may not be one that environmentalists want to hear, but it is… Continue reading
The Civic, the Commons and the Social
From Martin Brown’s blog: Say I am walking down a street in a large city and come across a homeless person on the sidewalk, and I ask myself if that could have been my fate. If I think that I could have been that person—except for different circumstances—then we share a common humanity. Our differences… Continue reading
Europe Must Follow Netherlands in Adopting Net Neutrality Law
Source: La Quadrature Du Net The Netherlands became the first EU country to adopt a law protecting Net neutrality. This initiative must set the example for the rest of Europe and France. After the the vote in the lower chamber last year, the Dutch Senate definitively adopted the Net neutrality law1, which bans operators from… Continue reading
An appeal to join our P2P Group on Facebook
Poor Richard writes: P2P (peer-to-peer) is the post-capitalist socio-economic framework that makes the most sense to me. It transcends but includes capitalism; and encompasses many hybrids of open and closed, public and private, hierarchical and egalitarian associations. P2P emphasizes cooperation, openness, fairness, transparency, information symmetry, sustainability, accountability, and innovation motivated by the full range of human… Continue reading
Your thoughts: Helping sustainable currencies to scale
Matthew Slater writes: For the forthcoming International Social Transformation Conference on energy currencies, Community Forge is preparing a paper on grass roots strategies for sustainable currency implementation. We wish to solicit opinions from readers of this blog on this draft version (9 pages). It explains the why and the how of Community Forge’s striving for impact by offering free… Continue reading
Project of the Day: OSE@Home
Website: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE@Home Integrated resilient energy/food/water system for the home. Description Nathan Cravens: “OSE@Home is a package delivered to your door assembled at home with easy to follow video instructions to maintain the home self-sufficiently. No more utility bills and fuel costs! The package includes an aquaponic farm to grow fish, beans, and vegetables. Water comes… Continue reading
The Joe Justice Interview: the state of p2p production methods
A very interesting interview on the state of the p2p production method, conducted by the ever excellent interviewer from Rome, Simone Cicero. The original interview is also available in Italian here. A must read: “Simone Cicero: First of all, we would like to know from you directly what’s the status of Wikispeed, and get some… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Max Keiser talks with David Graeber
Max Keiser talks with David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5000 Years, about weaponized debt and the origins of May Day:
New books advocate ‘open source’ model for nanotechnology
Source: UTS Nanotechnology and Global Equality, by Dr Donald Maclurcan, and Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability, edited by Dr Maclurcan and Dr Natalia Radywyl, build the case that global prosperity now demands innovation without economic growth, and nanotechnology shows such innovation is possible. “Practices like ‘open source nano-innovation’ offer game-changing avenues for bypassing inhibitive start-up costs… Continue reading
Wikipedia founder to help in government’s research scheme
Source: The Guardian The government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. The initiative, which has the backing of No 10 and should be up and running in two years, will be announced by… Continue reading
CfP: “Platform Politics” in Culture Machine
This special issue of the peer-reviewed, open access journal Culture Machine on the concept of ‘Platform Politics’ will explore how digital platforms can be understood, leveraged and contested in an age when the ‘platform’ is coming to supplant the open Web as the default digital environment. Platforms can be characterized as resting on already existing… Continue reading